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Can BIP 39 Words Restore Liquid and Lightning Coins on Blockstream Wallet?
396 sats \ 5 comments \ @spiderman 2 Jul bitcoin_beginners
I am using the Blockstream self custodial wallet on Android. I have created a wallet, backed up the 12 words, and put some on-chain coins in it. But the wallet also allows me to receive/send Lightning and Liquid coins. Are those coins retrievable by the same BIP 39 seed phrase?
That means, suppose I put some liquid and lightning coins there, with address/invoices generated by the app. Then, if the device dies, can I restore my assets on another device by putting in the same seed phrase? Specifically,
  • the on chain coins (I think I can)
  • the liquid BTC
  • the lightning coins
Or, is my device a single point of failure? If so, I do not dare to use lightning at all, as it seems all my coins can disappear if my device dies without warning which can realistically happen any time to anyone.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @021f3af1a6 15h
Honestly, from what I understand:
On-chain BTC can be fully restored with the BIP39 seed phrase.
Liquid BTC is a separate network asset and may or may not be recoverable just with the seed depending on the wallet’s implementation.
Lightning BTC is tricky — channel states and balances often require additional backups beyond the seed phrase. If those aren’t saved, you risk losing funds.
So yes, your device or how the wallet handles backups can be a point of failure, especially for Lightning. It’s really important to understand the wallet’s recovery process before trusting it with large amounts or Lightning channels.
If you want safety, using hardware wallets and regularly backing up channel states is recommended.
That’s what I’ve learned so far — still learning too!
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @02c42fc294 2 Jul
Yes, your seed is sufficient to get all on-chain and off chain funds back. The lightning Integration of the blockstream wallet is done via greenlight. This means that the node and all it's metadata is running on blockstreams infrastructure, however without keys. Those keys are running in the app. So the node runs the lightning protocol, if the node needs signoff from the keys, i.e., whenever funds move, the request is sent to the wallet, which independently verified it, signs it and sends the result back.
This means that the keys are sufficient to recover funds because all non-derived data is safeguarded on the server.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @spiderman OP 2 Jul
Thanks a lot for the clarification. If you don't mind a follow up, what happens if the blockstream server crashes (as a theoretical possibility, however unlikely)?
I can still recover my on-chain coins, I assume, as those UTXOs are in the Blockchain, not on Blockstream?
But my lightning and liquid sats are gone?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @_Bubble_2009 2 Jul
I hope that u had sore in very secure way your seed phrase.
BTW, the better way to have a real self custodial of your bitcoin is had a node and store your seed phrase in an air gapped phone or computer.
On mobile phone is better have a view only wallet.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @spiderman OP 2 Jul
Thanks a lot for the advice. How do people pay at a shop (using lightning or on-chain) then? I cannot carry my trezor HWW around, can I?
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